


Wet Hot American Hostage Crisis

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (TV)
Genre: 1980s, A little bit of Lindsay/Susie if you squint, Between Seasons/Series, Camp Tigerclaw, Class Issues, First Time, Hostage Situations, Izod shirts are an important plot point here, M/M, Summer Camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:43:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5458556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben and McKinley just wanted a better place to fool around. But when does anything go according to plan at Camp Firewood? Good thing Susie's there to look out for her best friend.</p><p>Very capably betaed by Spock! Thank you!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wet Hot American Hostage Crisis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justlikethehamptons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikethehamptons/gifts).



**July 31, 1981**

**4:00 pm**

_The Beekeeper here with some sweet tunes to get you through this sultry summer afternoon. Maybe you're feeling a little tired. Maybe you just want to kick back and relax...with someone special. Here's a tune for[just the two of you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOuI4OqJfQc)_

The equipment shed was private, which was good. Ben and McKinley had figured out how to prop the door closed, and that was even better. But it was also insanely frigid when it was cold and completely miserable when it was hot.

Ben and McKinley had a mission: Find a better place to make out in. 

Eric's cabin was huge, but it was also covered with _Police Line: Do Not Cross_ tape, and J.J. practically broke his foot in booby trap just from looking around, so that was out. The no man's land between Camp Firewood and Camp Tigerclaw was another possibility, but JJ had already caught poison ivy out there, and neither Ben nor McKinley wanted to explain any kind of crotch rash to Nurse Nancy. Or anyone else.

There was an associate professor renting a house just off the property line who didn't seem to use his basement much. Ben checked that out one day when Susie was down and out with food poisoning from a bad batch of clams she'd eaten in town, but it turned out that he probably didn't use the basement because it was flooded with at least two inches of water. The equipment shed looked pretty good compared to that.

The goat shed smelled funny. Just...bad.

Then there was the cabin that the government guy had rented. It was just past the property line of the camp, too, to the south. It was small and looked pretty private. But he and Gail were spending a lot of time there. A _lot_ of time. No one had even put a lanyard together for days.

McKinley had pointed out that they could just fool around in one of the cabins while the kids were out doing activities, but Ben had argued that their odds of getting busted by the kids were a lot higher that way. If there was a bigger boner-killer than thinking about some snot-faced kid coming back in shame because he'd shit in his swimming trunks and catching them together....

Yeah, neither of them wanted to come up with something worse than that.

So most of the time they'd used the equipment shed. "We should put our initials in here," McKinley said, pulling his shirt back on. "You know, like carving your name in a tree."

"I dunno," Ben said. "It'd be kind of obvious, wouldn't it?"

"I...I guess I don't mind," McKinley said. "If it's obvious."

"Easy for you to say," Ben said. "Everybody thinks you're straight."

"No they don't."

"Susie did."

"She did?"

"J.J. and Gary do."

"Well, yeah, but--" McKinley shrugged. "Anyway. I still want to find a better place."

"Coop says Camp Tigerclaw has a secret makeout cabin."

McKinley leaned against the shed wall. "Seriously? You want to risk starting up the war again?"

"We've got a truce! Besides, if we went there in the dark, nobody would even know it was us. We could wear polo shirts, they'd _really_ never know."

"You think they couldn't spot a knockoff at ten paces? And the ones you wear are getting...tired."

Ben leaned over conspiratorially. "I have two—two—pristine Izod shirts in my suitcase."

"No shit?"

"Swear to God."

"Well," McKinley said. "Let's try it. Half an hour after lights out?"

Ben leaned over and pecked him on the lips. "You got it."

 

**11:30 pm**

Susie couldn't sleep. She'd always had a little bit of a sixth sense. If someone was coming down with laryngitis, she'd be handing out throat lozenges before anyone so much as coughed. She'd even known when Gene was going to serve milkshakes before the musical revue last week and had managed to stop him just in time.

But this wasn't something she could put her finger on. Something was just weird. Wrong.

She got out of bed. Most of the kids were asleep, though Miriam was still staring up at the ceiling. "It was just a movie," Susie snapped at her. "Relax."

"But those twins," Miriam moaned. "They're gonna eat my _soul."_

"No they aren't," Susie said, and left the cabin.

The moon was out, no clouds, and it was pretty cool for Maine this late in the summer. Susie rubbed her hands on her arms to keep herself warm. 

What was going on?

Someone was sneaking around in the dark, near the mess hall. "Hey," Susie hissed at the dark figure. "Hey!"

"What?" 

Susie caught a lean but feminine body, tight jeans...oh, Lindsay. "What's going on?" she demanded.

Lindsay's eyes were wide. "I...I don't know! I didn't do anything!"

"Seriously," Susie said. "Something's wrong. Have you seen anything...weird?"

Lindsay shook her head. "Like, weird how?"

"I don't know," Susie said. "Something's up. And I'm going to find out what." She set off in the direction of Tigerclaw.

"What--where are you going?" Lindsay asked, falling quickly into step behind her. 

"My sixth sense. It's telling me to go this way." Susie lifted her finger and pointed toward Camp Tigerclaw territory.

"What sixth sense?"

"Just trust me."

 

**August 1, 1981**

**12:00 am**

 

_You can take the reporter out of the camp, but you can't take the camp out of the reporter. While I had long ago left behind my past as a reporter at Rock & Roll World magazine, the nose for news never really leaves you. I thought I'd been on a mission for Gene's Super Special Fudge Brownies, but it turned out my long-dormant nose for news had taken a sniff of something else. Something intriguing. So I found myself following the intrepid Susie as she strode confidently into the no man's land that separated our humble camp from the crocodile swamp of Camp Tigerclaw._

_"Should we really be doing this?" I asked._

_Susie's eyes were locked on something on the far horizon. "We have to be doing this," she said, her voice shaking with passion, the bottoms of her sweatpants already soaked through with morning dew..or at least what I hoped was morning dew. "Something's wrong, and I need to find out what."_

_With those words, I knew: I would follow Susie. Wherever the trail would lead._

~~~

"What the hell is going on?" Ben whispered to McKinley, as they huddled together.

The military man with the long beard shouted something at him in a language Ben didn't understand.

By the looks of things, McKinley didn't understand it either. "Is that...Iranian? Are they speaking Iranian?" McKinley asked.

"Oh my God." Ben's eyes went wide. "We're hostages. We're totally hostages."

"Nooooo," McKinley said.

The guy yelled at them again. Loudly. And then put a hand over his mouth.

"Oh," McKinley said.

"So you're saying," Ben said, extending his finger, "that you want us to shut up?"

More yelling.

McKinley shook his head. "Man, you just can't please some people."

 

**1:00 am**

Ron was sleeping off another sex hangover when the call came in on his red phone.

The red phone...that was the White House. That was a problem.

"Hello?"

"We have a situation." Well, shit, that was General Holden. 

"Yes, sir?"

"We have reason to believe someone has taken two hostages from Camp Tigerclaw. You may recall that several of those campers' families have...national security connections."

"That I do." 

"If they've kidnapped the wrong kids, Von Kleinenstein, we could be looking at an international incident, and not one we created. We could have egg all over our faces. No one wants that."

"No, Sir. No egg." Gail was still sleeping. She snored a little. It wasn't as cute as it had been at the beginning. He'd started wondering if he'd rushed this whole marriage thing.

"Take care of it, Von Kleinenstein. That's an order."

"Of course. Sir." He hung up the phone.

Hostages. Great. That was just what he needed.

He pulled his pants on and dug around until he found his tie. It seemed like it'd been so long since he'd needed it here. The cleanup was going fine and....

Honestly, he hadn't gotten out of bed very often.

Well, nothing to do now but make his way over to Camp Tigerclaw.

**1:30 am**

At Camp Tigerclaw, nothing was going on.

"No one's missing," the director said, narrowing his bushy white eyebrows in confusion. "We have a phenomenally accurate tracking system. Right now, our counselors are at their cocktail hour, their assistants are in the bunks with the campers, and..." He looked over at a black plastic panel on the side of his office, covered in green and red blinking lights. "...three campers are engaged in...well, some kind of complicated sexual congress in the woods, but at any rate, they're not being held hostage. I can assure you of that."

"Wait, the counselors have assistants?"

He frowned in confusion. "Well, of course, who else tells the children what to do? But, at any rate, that's immaterial. If you have any further questions, Mr. Von...Klein, was it?"

"Von Kleinenstein," Ron said. It was like being back in DC.

"Quite. So, if you have any further questions, you'll have to talk with the assistant director. I have a rather pressing appointment with a young lady and a rather large brick of cocaine."

"Um, yeah, well—" The guy actually turned his back on Ron. Just—gone. Damn. "Right."

 

**2:30 am**

There were men standing around the shed in knit ski masks. It looked like they were carrying guns. Either something _really_ kinky was about to happen, or Susie's instincts were right after all. "Okay," Lindsay said. "Now what?"

"I don't know!" Susie's eyes were wide. They sparkled in the moonlight. "I...honestly didn't think I'd get this far."

One of the men turned their head in the girls' direction, and they both fell silent, crouching in the dark. They waited, Lindsay's heart pounding. Susie was close, so close to her. Close enough to touch if she wanted.

Where had that come from?

Well, she had always been drawn to intensity. Susie wasn't short on that...for sure. Lindsay had seen her try to strangle a girl last week with her own tights. She'd been screaming "downbeat, damn it, _downbeat!"_

Okay, that _had_ been pretty hot. It might have been Susie's best attempt at Broadway but Lindsay knew rock n' roll when she saw it. Lindsay wondered what she'd look like in some black eyeliner.

Susie was poking her in the arm. Lindsay glared at her. _What?_

Susie pointed. Oh, there was a path. Cover. Lindsay followed her into the darkness.

 

**3:00 am**

"What do you mean, _kidnapped?"_ Director Morell said. His eyebrows had raised so high they were threatening to touch his hairline. And considering how much his hairline had receded in the past five years, that was saying something.

"Well," Head Counselor Archer said, "that's what the note said." It had been attached to two pairs of polo shirts. _We have your boys. We demand the US nuclear codes or they will die._

"Give me that," Director Morell said, snatching the shirts away. He squinted at them, then took a step back into his cabin so he could see them better in the light. "Archer, you idiot!"

"What?"

Director Morell threw the shirts to the ground. "Did you look at them at all? Even a glance?"

"Well, they're Lacoste—"

"Lacoste shirts from _last season,"_ he corrected. "In _clearance colors."_ He pointed at the shirts. "And smell them."

Archer frowned at him. "What?"

"Smell them!"

Archer kneeled down and lifted the shirts to his nose. They—oh, God. It was terrible. "They smell like Calvin, by Calvin Klein!"

"No Tigerclaw boy would be caught dead wearing _Calvin,"_ Director Morell snarled. "Or last season's shirts. No, whoever these filthy kidnappers have, they're from Camp Firewood. Serves them right for sneaking onto the premises. It's Camp Firewood's problem." He swept back into his cabin, slamming the door behind him. He had to attempt it twice to get a really firm slam, but the second one was definitive.

"Sir, should we tell Camp Firewood?" Archer asked. "Sir?"

 

**3:30 am**

Ron hadn't wanted to alarm anyone unnecessarily, but Beth's light was on anyway, so he knocked on the door.

The low buzzing sound that had been just below his attention stopped, and he heard a crashing noise, like some pottery had just fallen over.

Five minutes later, Beth was at the door, her hair a little mussed but otherwise looking...as normal as Beth looked. "Yes?" she said, straightening up. "What's wrong?"

"Well, I'm not sure anything is," Ron confessed. "But I had a call from Washington, and—"

"Excuse me," an unfamiliar voice said. "I believe I have something that belongs to you." It was a man who had to have been from Camp Tigerclaw: the shiny whistle around his neck and the three popped collars were a dead giveaway. He was holding a pair of polo shirts in his hand, like a normal person would hold a smelly sack of garbage. 

Ron took them and looked them over. No initials, no hairs, nothing. "These are...these are those polo shirts with the little alligators on the front. These could belong to anybody." 

Beth said, "They're Ben's."

"You—how do you know that?"

"Well," the man said. "I'll take my leave."

And then he was gone.

"Damn it, how do those guys do that?" Ron asked.

"Wait," Beth said. "Is this a ransom note? Is there a _ransom_ demand?"

"Wait," Ron said. "First tell me how you know it's Ben."

"None of the other guys wear polos. Honestly..." Beth's voice dropped. "Ben's...not quite like the other campers. There was a whole mix-up when he first came here. Long story short, we got Ben and Tigerclaw got Josh Gold. He's already repping Willie Aames, last I heard...anyway, who would take Ben and McKinley hostage?"

"What does McKinley have to do with this?"

Beth frowned at him. It was the same kind of frown the Tigerclaw counselor had given him, the _you don't really understand anything, do you?_ frown. "You haven't been here that long, have you?"

"I've been here since the first day of camp?"

"So...anyway. They must have been together. And someone's got them, and they're asking for a ransom, and...." The reality of it hit Beth, then, and she looked up at him with alarm. "Are they safe? How long have they been gone?"

"I'm not sure yet," Ron said. "I'm going to find out."

"Well, what can I do? Should I get Gene?"

"Why would you—" Why would they need the cook? "I'm sure it's going to be fine. Now that I know who it is...it should be easier. It's pretty clear they were trying to get someone from Tigerclaw. They...they might just let them go."

"Oh, thank God," Beth said. "But still. You'll find out? You'll take care of them?"

"Of course," Ron said. "Leave it to me."

 

**4:00 am**

The men in ski masks had left them alone in the cabin, though McKinley could see them through the windows if he got up and looked. They'd taken their shirts, for some reason, and it was starting to get cold.

"Come here," Ben said, softly. "You're shivering."

McKinley walked over and sat down, sinking into Ben's warm, strong arms. "I'm sorry," he said. "This is all my fault. I'll never complain about the equipment shed again."

"It's not your fault," Ben said, kissing the top of his head. "I...I wanted it to. I wanted us to have something special. For—you know."

"I know?"

"You know. Our...first time."

McKinley felt his eyes widen. "Wait...you want to go all the way?"

"More than anything," Ben confessed, pulling McKinley closer. "I just—"

"Ben," McKinley said. "We could...we could _die_ here." He shook his head. "No more waiting."

"Wait, you mean—"

"We're alone, right?" McKinley's hand slid up Ben's thigh, to the hem of his nylon shorts. "So...let's be alone."

"What if someone—"

McKinley grinned. "They shouldn't have kidnapped us, then, right?"

Ben smiled back and kissed him, hungrily. 

~~~

"What are we going to do?" Lindsay hissed at Susie.

"I don't know! We're in Camp Tigerclaw territory, but—but this isn't right. When they do their paramilitary exercises, they wear camo. This is _totally_ unprecedented!"

"Wait, they—" Yeah, those questions could wait. "Okay. So we have strange men in the woods, but how do we know that has anything to do with us? With Camp Firewood?"

Susie kneeled down silently and picked something up out of the grass. "This is why," she said, holding them up. "Knockoff Ray-Bans. No one at Camp Tigerclaw would wear them. But Ben does."

"Damn, _you_ are good," Lindsay said.

 

**4:30 am**

There was a noise from the wooden cabin. It sounded a little like a scream, and a lot familiar.

"That was McKinley," Lindsay said. He'd made the same sound when he dropped that crate of vegetables on his foot last weekend.

"Don't you know how to _knock!?"_

 _"That_ was Ben," Susie said.

They looked at each other.

"What should we do?" Lindsay asked.

"We do what we need to do," Susie said. "We rescue them. And we'll use what we know to do it."

"What's that?" Susie had never been to the Columbia School of Journalism, so she must have had something else on her mind.

Susie drew herself up to her full height and took a deep, careful breath. "The greatest toolkit in the world...the craft of the American Theatre."

~~~

Whoever the man in the ski mask was, he'd turned around in a hurry. Not that they cared. They had better things to do.

"Some people are so _rude,"_ McKinley said.

"Don't worry about it, baby," Ben said, pulling him close again. "Just let me take care of you."

"I thought you hadn't done this before," McKinley said affectionately.

"I learn fast, didn't you know that?"

 

**5:00 am**

Susie had run back to camp at about a hundred miles an hour, almost knocking Ron over on her way in. "You," she said. "Military guy. You can help me."

Ron shook his head. "Help you? With what?"

"We have a crisis," Susie announced. "McKinley and Ben have been kidnapped by strange men. At least I think they're men."

"Susie," Ron said, holding his hands out in supplication, or maybe just to protect himself. "Now, I know you're worried about your friends, but I'm not authorized to call in any kind of operation—"

"Operation?" Susie blinked at him like he was a crazy person. "I don't need—I just need your floodlights."

"Oh." Ron thought. "Yeah, you can have those. I mean, not have. Borrow. What...what do you need them for?"

"I'm going to get Ben and McKinley back," she answered, her voice dripping with disdain. "Duh."

 

**5:15 am**

 

It had all seemed so simple when Vlad had come up with the plan. Camp Tigerclaw was unguarded, conveniently located on an easy-to-access lake, with pampered, upper-crust assholes whose biggest skills were on the croquet green. (Is that what they played croquet on? A court?) Easy pickings, and easy pickings with connections to the military at that.

And getting the hostages had been simple. Of course it had been too good to be true.

It was after that that things went to hell. Vlad was the only one of them all who spoke English, which had seemed fine when they were planning, but now Aleksandr realized what a disadvantage it had put the rest of his group at. They had to trust him for _everything._

Worst of all, they couldn't figure out a damn thing the crazy Americans were shouting at them.

"Couldn't they whisper?" Ivan said, shaking his head. "Couldn't they whisper _just once?"_

They had thought about gagging them, but they didn't seem like they were going to scream, and even if they had, the cabin was isolated enough from the rest of the Tigerclaw compound that they wouldn't be heard.

"What was that?" Ivan turned his head toward something in the shadows.

"Nothing," Aleksandr grumbled. "Or maybe it's another fucking chipmunk."

"That was a _raccoon,"_ Ivan said. "With claws."

"Whatever it is, it's too small for you to be worrying about. We should be worrying about the ransom note. Vlad delivered it two hours ago, and nothing has happened. What if the Americans don't care about their children?"

Ivan shrugged. "Then we kill them, and they learn what real men do."

Aleksandr didn't want to kill...well, anyone in general, but the two boys they'd found in the cabin in particular. They were as harmless as a pair of dumplings. They'd had hours to try to escape and the worst thing they'd done was scar poor Andrei for life.

Well, all right, that part had been pretty funny. For everyone but Andrei, anyway.

There was a noise from the woods. Enough of a noise that even Aleksandr couldn't pretend it was just a chipmunk. He lifted up his rifle. _Please,_ he thought. _Don't make me shoot anyone—_

"Dobriy vyecher," the impossibly tall, blonde woman said, holding up a little card. _"I am a journalist. Can I ask you a few questions?"_

 _"You can ask me anything you want to,"_ Ivan said.

 

"Okay," Susie said, huddled over her map. "Lindsay's distracted the guards on the north side of camp. By my count, there are two more, the guy who speaks English and the big guy." She nodded at her tech crew. "You guys should know what to do—you've done it accidentally enough times, let's try doing it on purpose. Bright white, no filter, right in his eyes."

"We're on it," Toby said. "He won't be able to see anything but his hand in front of his face."

"You better be right," Susie said. "Don't fuck this up for me. For Ben."

"And McKinley," Beth added. She was hovering over Susie's shoulder so closely it was starting to get on Susie's nerves.

"Sure, McKinley too," Susie said. "Now, while Mr. Big Guy loses all vision, we move in. You ready?"

"Sure," J.J. said. "What are we supposed to do again?"

"Just follow my lead," Susie commanded. "On three."

 

Aside from that awkward moment when Andrei had checked on the prisoners, everything was going according to plan. 

Any minute now, the US Government would come swooping in, guns blazing, and these idiot Russians would get what they deserved. He'd flash his CIA badge, and it would all be glory from then on. The brave superspy who infiltrated a dangerous nest of Communist spies and saved two of America's finest young men from a horrible fate. So what if he'd been the one to come up with the plan and ship them here from the Soviet Union in the first place? Dead men didn't tell tales, especially the kind of dumb kids who would ship out in the dead of night with their friend 'Vlad' to bring their country glory.

It was just a matter of time.

It's not like anyone at Camp Tigerclaw would know their bright-eyed boys were secretly—

There was a noise in the woods, and Vlad lifted up his rifle. Don't look too aggressive; make sure you're taken alive. It'd be a damn pity to go to all this work just to get a bullet in the head on the field of battle. "Who's there?" he called.

"Your worst nightmare," a voice shouted back. "America."

A noise came out of the dark and a giant spotlight came to life, hitting Andrei right in the eyes. "Stay right there, commie!" a man yelled.

A little part of Vlad's brain, too small for him to notice, pointed out that American GIs probably wouldn't call people 'commie' in a hostage situation, but he was too pumped on adrenaline and hubris to care. "I—I surr—"

Something—some _one—_ hit him, low like a football tackle, and Vlad was on the ground, gasping for breath, his gun knocked out of his hands. 

"Yeah, we've got you now, asshole."

"Um, maybe?"

What the hell? Had his whole carefully planned operation been ruined by... _camp counselors?_

The big guy was pinning his arms behind his back and tying them with something. Macrame cord? "Don't move, Russkie," he said. "Or it'll only get worse for you."

It was bad enough already. 

_"American dog,"_ he spat. _"I demand to see my ambassador!"_

"Vlad?"

Oh, shit. Oh, _shit._

"Turn him over," the familiar voice said, and Vlad looked up into the stunned face of the President's special envoy for Secret Government Secrets, and Also Jellybeans. "Vlad, what the hell are you doing?"

_"I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no Vlad."_

_Yes there is,"_ Andrei said. _"You're Vlad. You told all of us you were Vlad."_

"He's Vlad, all right," Ron said. "And last I knew, he worked for the _C.I.A."_

Everyone gasped. _"Why are you gasping? You don't even know English!"_

 _"I know what C.I.A. means!"_

The little blonde girl who had tied up Andrei tugged on his bonds. "Hey, don't get too cute."

"Well?" Ron asked. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing! They made me come with them! They took me hostage! I have Stockholm Syndrome, like Patti Hearst!"

"Yeah, we'll see what the President has to say about that," Ron grumbled, dragging him up from the ground by his arm.

 

**6 am**

  _Good morning, Camp Firewood! The Beekeeper here, spinning the tunes you love. I have to apologize, campers, for not spinning my usual hard-driving morning tunes, but it...well, let's just say it's been a rough night. I'm not quite ready to move on to morning. If you aren't either, I think I've got just the tune.[Here's some John Cougar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CHvDPRWgJ4) before you have that first delicious cup of coffee._

"I'll just be gone a day or so," Ron said. "Just long enough to drive all these guys to DC. You'll hardly even know I've gone."

"But I'll miss you," Gail said, pulling him closer. "We've spent so much time together, and—"

"I know, I know," Ron said. "But I have a job to do. For my country. You understand that, don't you?"

Gail sighed. "I guess. And I _do_ have a paper chain project that's burning a hole back in my supply closet."

"See?" Ron kissed her cheek. "I'll be back before you know it."

"I hope so," Gail said.

Ron got into his government van, the kidnappers all carefully secured in the back. A blonde woman wearing a fur-trimmed hat slid in the seat next to him. "Hello," she said, with a faint Russian accent. "I am Nadia, the diplomatic liaison for this trip. Pleased to meet you."

She was tall and seemed to be mostly legs and breasts. "Um, hi," Ron stammered. "Aren't you...aren't you hot in that hat?"

"Oh, I am from the Soviet Union," she purred. "It gets very cold there, so I am always looking for ways to keep warm."

"Oh," Ron said. "Um, so you're going to ride up here with me?"

"Right by your side," she said. Her hair was really more of a honey blond. It was really wavy, and looked like it'd be incredibly soft to the touch.

"Well," Ron said, swallowing hard. "Good."

~~~

"So then I tackled the big guy!" J.J. waved his arms. "Like a football player. I wish you could've seen it, it was _awesome."_

"Sure," McKinley said. 

"But what were you and Ben doing all the way out here anyway?" Gary asked. "I mean...there's nothing out here but Camp Tigerclaw's trash."

"Well, um, we actually heard a rumor that a whole bunch of condoms got dumped out here," McKinley said. "Like a case. I was gonna get you guys but we were afraid they'd clean it all up before we got there."

"Oh," J.J. said.

"Sweet," Gary said.

"Yeah," McKinley said. He looked over at Ben, who was still standing between Beth and Susie. Susie was probably figuring out how to turn the whole night's ordeal into a one-woman show.

Ben smiled at him over Susie's head. _I love you,_ he mouthed.

 _I love you too,_ McKinley said. _Next time the equipment shed will be fine._

"Did you say something?" Gary asked.

"I love this jacket Ron gave me to wear," McKinley said. "Is it Army surplus or something? It's super warm and it looks badass."

"Oh, yeah," J.J. said. "You look really tough in it."

"Hey, he _is_ tough," Gary said. "He survived the Russians."

"Yeah." J.J. thumped his arm. "Too bad you didn't get to kick anyone's ass like I did."

"I did all right," McKinley said, thoughtfully.

~~~

"So, um. What are you going to do now?"

Susie shrugged. "I don't know...why?"

Lindsay shrugged back. "I've got some hot cocoa at my cabin. You...wanna come over? I'm too tired to deal with the mess hall right now."

"Yeah," Susie said. "That sounds...nice."

"Cool," Lindsay said.

**Author's Note:**

> Also starring: [John Lithgow](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001475/) as Director Morrell
> 
> [Jason Schwartzman in a blond wig](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005403/?ref_=tt_cl_t12) as Archer
> 
> [Seth Green](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001293/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1) as Aleksandr
> 
> [Sam Rockwell](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005377/?ref_=tt_cl_t5) as "Vlad"
> 
> and [Dianna Agron](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1872698/?ref_=nv_sr_1) as Nadia


End file.
